D-Day Prepping Series - Disaster
April 14, 2013 Dr. Mike Fogerson, Chester FBC
Introduction:
A Those of us of a certain age remember when the threat of a nuclear bomb was an ever present, very real fear.
1 Today, our fears of disasters come in all kinds of wrappers.
a Natural, man-made (terrorists).
b Personal (financial, familial, employment)
2 Psalms 88 is perhaps the most depressing of all the Psalms.
a Many of the psalms start dark, brooding, depressing and end up with a triumph, victory, salvation . . . no such reprise is found in 88.
b Read text (Ps. 88)
1 O Lord, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and in the night before You. 2 Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry!3 For my soul has had enough troubles, And my life has drawn near to Sheol .4 I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength,5 Forsaken among the dead, Like the slain who lie in the grave, Whom You remember no more, And they are cut off from Your hand.6 You have put me in the lowest pit, In dark places, in the depths.7 Your wrath has rested upon me, And You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah .8 You have removed my acquaintances far from me; You have made me an object of loathing to them; I am shut up and cannot go out.9 My eye has wasted away because of affliction; I have called upon You every day, O Lord; I have spread out my hands to You. 10 Will You perform wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah.11 Will Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon ?12 Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?13 But I, O Lord, have cried out to You for help, And in the morning my prayer comes before You.14 O Lord, why do You reject my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me?15 I was afflicted and about to die from my youth on; I suffer Your terrors; I am overcome .16 Your burning anger has passed over me; Your terrors have destroyed me.17 They have surrounded me like water all day long; They have encompassed me altogether.18 You have removed lover and friend far from me; My acquaintances are in darkness. Psalms 88:1-18 (NASB)
aa This Psalm contains none of the encouragement of Psalm 23;
bb None of the hope of Psalm 121:
I lift up my eyes to the hills-- where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot slip-- he who watches over you will not slumber; Psalms 121:1-3 (NIV)
c You have put me in the lowest pit, In dark places, in the depths. 7 Your wrath has rested upon me, And You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Psalms 88:6-7 (NASB)
aa We’ve all felt hopeless, abandoned, ruined, forgotten.
bb We’ve all felt like the storm will never pass, disaster never recover from.
B Let’s take a closer look at the Psalmist’s disaster applies to ours.
I Know the Difference Between Wrath & Affliction.
Your wrath has rested upon me . . .Psalms 88:7 (NASB)
1 When God is angry with us, it’s not the anger of a judge, it’s the anger of a daddy.
a Every house has a government, rules, order (If not, anarachy)
aa If the rules are broken, dad will visit the rule breaker . . .always as the father.
bb Dad is angry at the child because the child is living under his roof . . . the child is His! Dad’s going to punish him because Dad loves him.
b Before you went (or until) you go to the cross, God is your judge.
aa When you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, your offenses are no longer yours . . . they are laid upon Jesus (subsitute, lamb of atonement).
bb The judges wrath was laid upon Jesus —God’s wrath came down on calvary.
cc You will not be judged for sin that has already been punished, paid for by Jesus.
dd Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written, Romans 8:33-36 (NASB)
c If you’re suffering isn’t from one drop of God’s righteous anger.
aa Your not being punished for sins as a culprit is punished by a judge.
bb You are not a criminal in the penial system. . . you’re a child in God’s home.
cc If you are suffering ask yourself, “What am I doing to bring the rod of discipline from my Father?”
2 I’ll speak for myself: I wonder why I’m not always being disciplined!
a I’m ungrateful, unmoved, unlovable.
b I’ll sing a song, read a text and not be moved, stirred by God.
c I deserve to be “beaten” on a regular basis, Jack.
3 God doesn’t turn a blind eye when his babies are acting up.
a If I would pass a group of kids throwing rocks, breaking windows . . . I may not stop.
aa If Lake/Ridge are in the group . . . I’ll grab’em up and they gone.
bb I do the grabbin’ not as a judge but as a . . . Father.
b Sometimes are disaster hits because God sees a sin in our lives that hasn’t even been brought to our knowledge . . . but it’s there . . . He unearthed it.
aa IL. Two pitchers of water: one w/ clear water, one w/ dirt settled on the bottom. Stir both.
bb We wouldn’t have even known that filth was in us . . . just because we don’t see it, it’s still in us!
cc Sweep the house, acknowledge the sin!
II He was making things worse than they really were.
Ps.88.7, “You have afflicted me with all Your waves.”
1 Really? ALL that could wrong has went wrong?
a If you look around, there is ALWAYS somebody who has a little worse than you or I have it.
b No, we don’t have all the waves.
2 When I compare my disaster compared to the suffering of my Savior, I feel a little bad about complaining to begin with.
a I’m not on a cross, been beaten w/ a cat-o-nine tails, crowned with thorns, spear thrust in my side.
b In the presence of Christ’s cross, our own crosses seem less colossal.
c Our own thorns of the flesh are nothing compared when we lay them side by side to the nails & spear.
III God permits our disasters.
1 God is in control of the whole show.
a There is absolutely nothing that comes into our lives that God hasn’t allowed, permitted.
aa No disaster, valley, NOTHING.
bb Nothing is left up to chance/fate.
cc Even the most ungodly of situation/people are tools in God’s hands.
2 You ever the play the “if” game?
a If I had another doctor, If I would have married someone different; If I had taken a different job/career path; If I’d taken better care of myself . . . who is the judge of what might have been?
b The “IF” game is a fools game that brings us a lot of loss/heartache. Why rebel against God?
aa If you hit a dog with a stick, he’ll bite the stick: it wasn’t the sticks fault!
bb You may have been hit/bit by some rod, forgive the one who injured you–his was the sin, forgive them the way you hope to be forgiven.
cc God allowed you/me to be hit/bit.
c Ask God the grace to profit from your disaster, pain, personal tragedy.
3 When you know that your disaster “it is the Lord,” we know He is doing good.
a As long as I bit the stick, harm the people who are hurting me, let loss on another’s wrong . . . I’m operating in the flesh.
b I gotta look beyond the stick, “cast my burden on the Lord.”
c It is easier to bear your burden when you know that the burden originally came from God.
IV There are gains to the pain.
1 We look to heaven when our world (personal world) is struck by disaster.
a When you’re on a lake on a beautiful day it’s great, run wide open, but when the sunny sky turns dark, lighting strikes . . . there is nothing like getting to shore, shelter.
b In our own disasters, our wings are clipped & we sit in the shelter of God’s wings/ sit in the Master’s hands.
aa We might as well sing & let our strength return until the storm passes.
bb Our strength will return & well get a chance to fly again.
2 Disaster opens the truth to us & us to the truth.
a You’ve heard countless sermons, read many passages of Scripture, heard tremendous messages sang & it rolls off of you like water over a marble slab until your world falls apart.
b Pain, tragedy, loss, ruin opens us up to God.
aa I love the night sky, stars, but I’ve discovered the sky looks different at Randolph County Lake than it does at 706 State Street.
bb When I’m in the woods, lake, camping w/o the city lights I see things I’ve never seen in my backyard.
c When we’re down, disaster strikes our hearts become ultra sensitive to the things of God.
3 Your disastrous tragedy, when sanctified by the Holy Spirit, is going to be your testimony.
a It’s a powerful thing to hear an aged Christian whose buried his wife, a few kids, blind with aged, earned gray hair speak with a voice of a prophet of how his God has been faithful, loving through it all.
aa Suppose he never knew suffering, disaster, pain, tragedy?
bb Suppose he had lived in luxury, never knew loss?
b If we are never beaten, tired, afflicted you cannot magnify God like those who have been through disaster.
c When you have been through hell you have a testimony of God never left you!
4 Suffering makes us look more like Jesus.
(“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die” is a lyric from an old song; “Everybody wants to be like Jesus, but nobody wants the cross.”)
a Paul wrote, “8Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, . . .10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; Phil 3:8-10 (KJV)
b If we want to be like be like Jesus and not know personal pain, disaster.
c You will drink from a cup of sorrow, suffering, baptized with His baptism (Matt. 26.38).
aa 38 Then he said,
